So I had this thought today. There has been a lot of discussion of NPEs, how awful wave 11 is, power creep, and so on as of late.

I have been considering posting a thread for some time detailing all of the things throughout the history of xwing which have been detailed as negative play experiences and how the negative aspect of these things could possibly be resolved, but it was too large a task. So, instead I simply ask,

what IS the right state of the game?

What exists, and what does not in this xwing utopia?

There is plenty of discussion about what isn't fun to play against, but what is? Where is the game at where you can lose 100-0 (or perhaps more appropriately, 26-0), and you say "wow, I need to play this game more. I learned a lot and know full well that I lost because my opponent, who was certainly playing the same game as I was in every aspect on his end of the table, won because he built a better list, placed obstacles better, set up better,and maneuvered better."

Excited to hear everyone's thoughts.

I think at it's simplest form, the best way to have a "perfect" game would be a game where two players of similar skill, both bringing well made squads to a match, have just as much a chance to win as the other depending how they play that game. In other words, not having the game decided by the squad matchup so much.

Which basically means a completely wide open meta.

With each passing wave the meta usually gets bigger and more diverse, but the fact still remains that if you don't run one of the top lists at the moment, you're likely putting yourself at a bit of a disadvantage. There's nothing wrong with having less ideal matchups sometimes, as long as your chances at winning are still reasonable.

However this is unlikely to ever change unless FFG nerfs and buffs elements in the game much more frequently.

I game that's so Star Wars that it just feels right to lose. The Rebels successful make the Trench Run, drop a proton torp in the exhaust port, and the Imperial player says "yep, that's just the way it's supposed to be."

Here are some of my thoughts:

1) The Meta still exists. It's impossible, or at least infeasible, to avoid that, and to some extent, a meta is part of what makes the competitive game fun; you can predict it, usurp it, reform it...

2) The Meta is not overpowering; other builds are still useable, even if they aren't QUITE as efficient. Pilot skill and the surprise factor can even the table.

3) There are counters, but not hard counters. Bombs hurt aces, but aren't insurmountable; TIEs chew through a Falcon, but can be bested by good piloting. This is the essence of avoiding an NPE; there is no "no-win scenario." How you play matters more than what you play (but both are, of course, important).

Short Answer: Keep it simple

Long Answer: See Short Answer

The major issues with the game involve your opponent playing a game that you are not part of.

-I can bomb your ship and you will take damage no matter what maneuver you pick.

-If you are in range I can shoot you and there is nothing you can do about it (sometimes with auto damage)

-If you block me/ stress me I still can get tokens/actions and there is nothing you can do about it.

-It doesn't matter where you maneuver, I can double move after you and there is nothing you can do about it.

-If I fly this exact way you have to shoot this ship and I will reduce your damage and distribute it as I see fit and there is nothing you can do about it.

A game where only one person determines who wins and loses is always going to be a negative play experience. A bit of an exaggeration? Not really. When it doesn't matter what I do with my ships it's really hard to have a fun positive play experience.

1 hour ago, Kdubb said:

I have been considering posting a thread for some time detailing all of the things throughout the history of xwing which have been detailed as negative play experiences

I think that's not likely to be possible unless you can find a widespread consensus on what is or isn't a NPE. Clearly some people think having to change their list or playstyle is a NPE. Some people think anything that beats them is a NPE. You would have to sort that sort of chaff (plenty of it visible in these forums) to get to the few things that most would agree are actual problems that spoil the game for them (other than above mentioned whiners :P)

I think there was a broad consensus that Phantoms needed dialing back, Palpatine was a bit over the top and U-Boats were OP. Beyond that, consensus is harder to find.

Personally, I'll play whatever the opponent has brought, as long as it's a legal list. I'm more interested in an enjoyable battle of wits across a broadly level playing field (again, definitions will vary) because that's why I play the game. And because Star Wars of course

1 hour ago, Rakky Wistol said:

The major issues with the game involve your opponent playing a game that you are not part of.

That's exactly it.

I always prefer games where I can interact with the opponent's choices. Just give me the possibility, so I know I could have stopped it even after I mess up. It's very frustrating if that's missing, hence NPE

1 hour ago, Rakky Wistol said:

The major issues with the game involve your opponent playing a game that you are not part of.

-I can bomb your ship and you will take damage no matter what maneuver you pick.

-If you are in range I can shoot you and there is nothing you can do about it (sometimes with auto damage)

-If you block me/ stress me I still can get tokens/actions and there is nothing you can do about it.

-It doesn't matter where you maneuver, I can double move after you and there is nothing you can do about it.

-If I fly this exact way you have to shoot this ship and I will reduce your damage and distribute it as I see fit and there is nothing you can do about it.

A game where only one person determines who wins and loses is always going to be a negative play experience. A bit of an exaggeration? Not really. When it doesn't matter what I do with my ships it's really hard to have a fun positive play experience.

Over half of those points have existed since wave 7. Some go back as far as wave 2. Why all of a sudden is the game DOOMED and unplayable, around 2 years later.

Been around a long time does not = good.

I have also been around since right before wave 2... I'm terrible some games.

You used to be able to out joust, get lucky, and outfly those wave 2 lists. You can't outjoust a few of the top lists, luck is largely gone for most of the top lists (mods even without actions), and again, most don't care what you do. Your choices don't matter. You identified wave 7 as the shift but the phantom and fat Han era started this issue and that's where the creep has been.

There would be more positive play experiences if the game was more interactive and reactive AND if(for most of us) more classic ships were the top performers instead of spaceship hot wheels cars and toilet seats

36 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

Over half of those points have existed since wave 7. Some go back as far as wave 2. Why all of a sudden is the game DOOMED and unplayable, around 2 years later.

Because it's not sudden, it's been a long and steady accretion of **** that people have been accepting in the hope it would end. The light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be an oncoming train.

Wave 11 doubled down on ****. It has ended hope for many players.

@kdubb this is an excellent constructive question, though I fear it will just stir the same hornets nest as every other approach.

I approach the issue not from a POV of trying to patch issues, but of using a broader scope to say 'what do I want the game to look like' so we can work towards those aims. I have a lot of that in my head already but I'll try to draft it down into black and white.

As a hardcore strategic/tactical gamer, I would like this game to be like the top chess games, where the two chess grandmasters each sit, and stare at the game board for 30 minuttes without anything happening....and then one makes a move, where after the other looks up into your eyes and admits defeat!

Imagine X-wing being these grand historic battles of the mind!

Wait!?!

• Remain compatible with potential future FFG releases (as much as is foreseeable)
• Too much of a good thing is a bad thing
• Secondary weapons should be secondary
• If your opponent can't stop something it should be relatively hard to do
• Upgrades should be more vulnerable
• 'Perfect Balance' is not a design goal (reducing the gap between good & bad is a design goal)
• Revisit large ship repositioning mechanics

• Splintering the squad building rules to reduce the ability to trivially create powerful synergies over multiple cards. By this I mean I envisage something like the Netrunner/AGOT system where factions are more tightly defined but you're allowed to splash in a certain amount from 'allies' to retain squadbuilding variety and flexibility. This would allow you to divide First Order from Imperial, Resistance from Rebellion etc. TBH I think this may well be coming anyway once we've got another film's worth of First Order/Resistance stuff.

• Introducing secondary win conditions into 100/6 format play, eg. in the form of upgrades that bring new win conditions when equipped. They don't have to be so good that they overturn deathmatches as the primary form of the game in competition (think Battle of Wits Coalition Victory, Felidar Sovereign etc from Magic), but I think they would go down well and add useful variety to the game experience.

Disclaimer: I love the game and had a blast playing a "skewed furball" format a few times this week. I also still enjoy building for and playing competition.

In my opinion things started going downhill when arcbound generics were phased out at large. This issue can be tracked down to the Falcon or more precisely the way PWTs work, along with Engine Upgrade being a thing. First of all the ship is a tremendous arc-dodger that generics have a hard time dealing with. Secondly it was an incredibly hard counter to fragile aces. When the PWT problem was driven to the max in wave 4 and onwards, FFG decided to help these aces - by removing a great deal of their fragility with Autothrusters. Resulting in their ability to not only survive Gunnering PWTs, but also whole swarms at range 3. Catching these ships at range 1-2 is a lot more difficult (if the player is competent and knows not to go for shots all the time), so generics lost a lot of ground here. However PWTs persisted through Autothrusters and were then killed of by TLT, which also was way more efficient than any other generic and swiftly replaced them. And nothing has changed about that.

However, defence was at an all time high with rebel regen and palp aces at the top (both strong thanks to Autothrusters and TLTs, spawned from the effects of the PWT), which necessitated ever growing damage outputs to even have a chance of going through to these ships. This ultimately lead to Sabine on one aproach and torpmasters and Dengar on the other - the damage mitigation creep of Autothrusters and Palp had set in motion a ridiculous damage creep. With wave 11 we are on a swing of the ever escalating pendulum - Nym is on par with the other damage creepers of the avoind mitigation category and now it swings back with full force with fair ship rebels.

I don't think the cycle can be broken without major revisions.

3 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Disclaimer: I love the game and had a blast playing a "skewed furball" format a few times this week. I also still enjoy building for and playing competition.

In my opinion things started going downhill when arcbound generics were phased out at large. This issue can be tracked down to the Falcon or more precisely the way PWTs work, along with Engine Upgrade being a thing. First of all the ship is a tremendous arc-dodger that generics have a hard time dealing with. Secondly it was an incredibly hard counter to fragile aces. When the PWT problem was driven to the max in wave 4 and onwards, FFG decided to help these aces - by removing a great deal of their fragility with Autothrusters. Resulting in their ability to not only survive Gunnering PWTs, but also whole swarms at range 3. Catching these ships at range 1-2 is a lot more difficult (if the player is competent and knows not to go for shots all the time), so generics lost a lot of ground here. However PWTs persisted through Autothrusters and were then killed of by TLT, which also was way more efficient than any other generic and swiftly replaced them. And nothing has changed about that.

However, defence was at an all time high with rebel regen and palp aces at the top (both strong thanks to Autothrusters and TLTs, spawned from the effects of the PWT), which necessitated ever growing damage outputs to even have a chance of going through to these ships. This ultimately lead to Sabine on one aproach and torpmasters and Dengar on the other - the damage mitigation creep of Autothrusters and Palp had set in motion a ridiculous damage creep. With wave 11 we are on a swing of the ever escalating pendulum - Nym is on par with the other damage creepers of the avoind mitigation category and now it swings back with full force with fair ship rebels.

I don't think the cycle can be broken without major revisions.

I haven't played for that long, but what I know of my X-Wing history I think that's the point where it went wrong and ever since then the game has been dealing with greater and greater problems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_wobble

Yes please to all you've said. Could you expand on this?

30 minutes ago, SOTL said:

By this I mean I envisage something like the Netrunner/AGOT system where factions are more tightly defined but you're allowed to splash in a certain amount from 'allies' to retain squadbuilding variety and flexibility.

33 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Yes please to all you've said. Could you expand on this?

Well the AGOT version would be a simple "you can spend [a number] of your 100 points on cards from outside your faction".

The Netrunner version is better and more nuanced but would mean adding something to all existing cards. Effectively each card now has two 'costs' and you would get a certain amount of the secondary resource to spend in squadbuilding. You use the secondary resource to make it easier to bring in some pieces than others to both restrict possible combinations and retain different feels for the factions... eg. an Academy Pilot might be 1 point while Palpatine would be 5, so a First Order-based squad could bring in a bunch of TIE Fighters OR 1 copy of Palpatine.

The idea is that it's both controlling combinations from getting out of control, but also that it's trying to enforce different identities and feels for the sub-factions. A First Order squad should be different to an Imperial squad, a Pirate squad should be different to a Bounty Hunter squad.

[I do not presume to be 'leading the discussion' in any way.]

I like the worlds' final of @pheaver against Dallas Parker; for me it represents a nearly ideal state for the game to be in. The game had a good mix of generic pilots and named pilots with abilities, it was an interesting match with clashing styles of play, luck played a role and did its thing, positioning was very important, etc. It's hard for me to define precisely what I like so much about that game, but it represents how I would like X-Wing to be at the highest level.

Still, I'm a fan of complex interactions of cards and theorycrafting. But I feel that these combos should produce squads that are more difficult to fly effectively, and are more easily disrupted. As it is, combinations of upgrades allow players to exploit the ships' strengths while mitigating or even nullifying the weaknesses. It's like greater rewards come with smaller risks.

2 minutes ago, Verlaine said:

Still, I'm a fan of complex interactions of cards and theorycrafting. But I feel that these combos should produce squads that are more difficult to fly effectively, and are more easily disrupted. As it is, combinations of upgrades allow players to exploit the ships' strengths while mitigating or even nullifying the weaknesses. It's like greater rewards come with smaller risks.

This is a great observation.

Some other thoughts for discussion-

does the game in its best state have turrets in their current form, or at all?

How about arc dodgers?

what about bombs and ordnance?

Although R2D2 has been here from the get go, it doesn't necessatily mean regen is part of the "best" game. Does regen stay the same, get revised, or not exist at all?

I have some thoughts on each point but wanted to hear others thoughts.

6 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

Some other thoughts for discussion-

does the game in its best state have turrets in their current form, or at all?

How about arc dodgers?

what about bombs and ordnance?

Although R2D2 has been here from the get go, it doesn't necessatily mean regen is part of the "best" game. Does regen stay the same, get revised, or not exist at all?

I have some thoughts on each point but wanted to hear others thoughts.

In MY opinion...

Turrets are good for the game because they create diverse game experiences (see "too much of a good thing is a bad thing"). I can't object to a game that's about Han ducking and diving as he runs from a squadron of TIE Fighters, because that's basically the film experience captured in tabletop form. See also "secondary weapons should be secondary", though. A list that INCLUDES turrets is good. A list that RELIES on turrets is bad.

Arc Dodgers diversify the game experience. The recent poll on the Krayts thread seemed to very strongly suggest people didn't mind arc-dodging as much they minded bulletproof green dice. See "too much of a good thing is a bad thing". I would have PTL in my crosshairs for a cost increase - double reposition has proven to be very good and it should come at a slightly higher price.

Bombs & ordnance... "too much of a good thing is a bad thing". A list that INCLUDES bombs & ordnance is great, in my view. A list that RELIES on bombs and ordnance becomes very specialist and creates bad game experiences. I would tune them back a bit but would have no desire to return them to pre-Wave 8 levels.

I don't really object to Regen at all, as once again it diversifies the play experience to have this in the game and have squads that are playing the long game. I think R2-D2 is balanced, I think R5-P9 is balanced, and I think Miranda's regen is balanced and the rest of her build potential would be crimped back by changes to secondary weapons anyway.

If all turrets (both PWT, and turret upgrades) were restricted to range 1-2, I think the game would be better overall. All you have to do is look at the meta wing stats for how many lists rely largely on turrets. 68% of squads have turrets as a major component. It's too high for a game that's supposed to be about dog fighting.

Just one man's opinion:

I remember the designers a couple of years ago saying that PWTs as is are important for the game, because they allow new players interested in cinematic encounters a way to play the game effectively in that context. I can accept that. Generally, though, I'd love to see Autothrusters out the window and just make "out of arc" a +1 defense like R3 or intervening obstacle. That would let "normal" fighters have some counterplay against turrets, yet current Autothruster carriers wouldn't be nearly proof against them.

I'd like most ships capable of dodging arcs to lose most of their offense when doing serious repositioning. This is currently seen in Vader and PTL aces not named Soontir Fel. A general design principle of two movement actions = poor offense seems good, probably reduced to a single movement action = poor offense for large ships, depending on points.

Current on-reveal bombs seem well designed, with Genius Nym as an exception. Likewise with action bombs barring Advanced SLAM, although I don't even think these are awful.

In general, I'd like to see dial setting have an effect on any tactic the opponent uses and I think primary weapons should be the main "best"method of doing damage. I don't like things where there's no tradeoff on offense, defense, or movement. Any secondary tactics (stress, bombs, torpedoes) can be powerful, but hard to use. Right now many of them are powerful and easier to use than pointing your ship at something.

My deep thematic desire is to have any "military" craft be blatantly powerful, while modified civilian craft can deal with them, but in doing so need to be clever and tricky. Right now, the modified civilian craft just run roughshod over many purpose build ships of war, and that is distasteful to me from a thematic view.

Turrets realy have to turn into mobile arcs

Mobile arcs great coverage but telegraph movement and require action to reposition and can actually be dodged whereas PWT simply removes that possiblity entirely

I also think people are far too much in a tizzy about bombs UNLESS directly complaining about how unavoidable they are ito positioning. If damage is unavoidable because no green dice, well **** green dice.

Neither player really has any control over them without stacked guarantees and without they just introduce the possibility of ******* over good flying by rolling too well or too poorly. In an ideal world, we'd replace them with Armada tokens which rewards good play such as range control and concentrated fire

Green dice, the original NPE